EPP 116: 6 Ways To Find Great Content Ideas For Your Site

In this week’s episode of the Extra Paycheck Podcast we’re talking different ways of finding new great content ideas for your blog, website and online business.

Also available on: iTunes | Stitcher | Tunein | Google Play

If you’ve previously listened to the Extra Paycheck Podcast or have read blog posts here then you already know the importance of creating high quality content. Search engines love it and reward you for it, your readers love it and they always want more. You also know that creating high quality content is not an easy task.

So you produce loads of great articles and videos for your website and eventually you realize that you ran out of ideas. You might suffer from the infamous “writer’s block” or you might be legitimately out of idea. If you wrote hundreds of articles in your industry it’s only normal to feel like you have written about everything. But you know that you need to keep producing fresh content, where can you possible get ideas for more?

This week’s episode is exactly about that. I’ll be sharing six (6) strategies that I personally use to find new hot content ideas for my online business. These show notes are just quick overview of the episode so if you want the full details, scroll up and press the PLAY button.

1. Google Alerts

The idea is pretty simple. You set up Google alerts for desired keyword phrases in your niche and Google notifies you whenever new content with this phrases is published online. You can also use this free service to monitor mentions of your own brand.

You can set these notifications to be sent out to you once a day or once a week.

2. Reddit

The front page of the internet is now home to over 250 Million monthly users. Over 8 billion pages are viewed monthly through 850,000+ subreddits. There is a subreddit (category) for everything, including your niche. Head over to Reddit, find the proper subreddits for your industry and start paying attention to what people are posting and asking. Remember my super detailed and rather successful guide to starting a podcast? Reddit was partially responsible for that. Also don’t forget to check out FAQ’s and other pinned post to see which subjects are popular.

3. Quora

Quora is the new Yahoo Answers. There are almost 200 Million active monthly users who ask and answer questions on over 400,000 different topics. Rest assured that topics from your industry are being discussed on this website. When you set up your account (it’s free) on Quora you’ll be able to select the topics that interest you. Then you’ll be served with loads of questions and answers on these topics. Look through the popular questions to get some amazing content ideas.

You can also answer these questions and if you’re doing everything properly you can even add your own links in those replies. Don’t spam and you’ve got another source of traffic.

4. Facebook Groups

In episode # 112 of the Extra Paycheck Podcast I talked about using Facebook groups for marketing your business. These groups can also be a never-ending source of content ideas. Active groups might even have a pinned FAQ with the list of the most common questions. Take that list and start writing 😉

Pay attention to what kind of questions people are asking on a daily basis – you’d be surprised how many content ideas these members throw at you. Also if you do have a great piece of content that answers that questions, post your link in the reply. If you’re not spamming but helping people they would appreciate that.

5. Spy On Your Competition

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. You must know who your main competitors are, right? If you don’t, you can use SEMRush (affiliate) to find them all. Pay close attention to what kind of content your competitors are putting out. More importantly, what kind of content works well for them. This should give you some ideas for your own content.

Like their Facebook page and look at their content there as well. What kind of posts get the most likes, comments and reactions? Those are the good ones. Get inspired and create content that’s even better than your competition’s.

6. Good Old Forums

Although online forums have been dying a slow and painful death, they’re still there. Especially when it comes to smaller niches. People in these forums are very passionate and they post a lot of questions and answers. Join forums that are related to your industry and start looking at the popular threads and questions that are posted often. Also don’t forget about the questions that didn’t get much traction. If they aren’t popular, chances are no one answered. This gives you a chance to write a high quality reply (or even a blog post) and potentially get a good ranking without much effort. This might only bring you a few people per day but in the long run it can be well worth your while.